Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Obama's War on U.S. Energy

By Alan
Caruba

There is
no reason for the U.S. to be in such a slow recovery from the financial crisis
of 2008. If President Obama would get out of the way, our national debt could
be dramatically reduced and hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created in
the nation’s energy sector, leading to the expansion of its manufacturing
sector and still more jobs.

As Daniel
Simmons, the Director of Regulatory and State Affairs for the Institute of
Energy Research told the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on
Energy Policy, Healthcare and Entitlements in February 2013:

“The
federal estate contains vast energy resources, but the federal government
allows energy production on a very small percentage of taxpayer-owned federal
lands. The Interior Department has leased just two percent (2%) of federal
offshore areas and less than six percent (6%) of federal onshore lands for oil
and gas development.”

“These
technically recoverable resources total 1,194 billion barrels of oil and 2,150
trillion cubic feet of natural gas that is owned by the federal taxpayer…the
value of the estimated oil resources is $119.4 trillion and the value of the
estimated natural gas resources is $8.6 trillion for a grand total of $128
trillion.”

As 2014
began, Mark D. Green, editor and lead contributor to Energy Tomorrow, a project
of the American Petroleum Institute, noted that “Oil and natural gas are the
energies of our lives.” They heat and cool our homes and apartment dwellings.
They fuel our vehicles and aircraft. They are components of products we use
every day. “Every day 143 U.S. refineries convert an average of 15 million
barrels of crude oil for these uses and more.”

Green also
noted the important role the energy industries play in our economy, citing the
“5.6 percent (5.6%) of total U.S. employment. “With the right policies in
place—pro-development policies that increase access to domestic reserves—the
industry could add another 1.4 million jobs by 2030.”

Jobs for
younger workers would increase because 50 percent (50%) of the oil and natural
gas industry’s skilled workers could be retiring within a decade.
Pro-development policies would fuel a renaissance in manufacturing as lower
energy prices would reduce out-sourcing and attract manufacturers to build and
expand facilities in the U.S.

One factor
stands in the way of this brighter economic future and that is President Obama
and those who direct the work of the Environmental Protection Agency—an enemy
of the coal industry—and the Department of the Interior which has slowed the
provision of leases to energy companies to expand the discovery and extraction
of energy resources.

Instead,
Obama has delayed the construction of Canada’s Keystone XL pipeline, a project
that would generate jobs to build it and jobs resulting from it. Green says
that “As unimaginable as it might have been just five years ago, the right
policy decisions could see the U.S. meet 100 percent (100%) of its liquid fuel
needs domestically or from Canada by 2014.”

Energy industries already send $85
million a day to the U.S. Treasury in
income taxes, royalty payments, and other fees. Obama, though, wants to raise
the nation’s borrowing limits after having added six trillion dollars in debt
in his first term.

It was Obama
who wasted a trillion dollars on a failed “stimulus”, discovering belatedly
that there were few “shovel-ready” jobs while at the same time wasting billions
in loans to wind and solar companies that went into bankruptcy shortly after
receiving them.

As Simmons
points out, “In 2011, wind power produced 1.2 percent (1.2%) of the energy used
in the United States, solar power produce 0.1 percent (0.1%) and hydroelectric
power contributed 3.3 percent (3.3%) of the total energy used. Solar and wind
energy is unpredictable and require back-up from traditional electrical energy
plants. “Today, there are 104 nuclear reactors in the United States and
construction began for all of these reactors prior to 1974.”

Thanks to
the EPA 153 coal-fired plants have been shut down!

What the
public is not told is that the coal-fueled electric sector has invested $110
billion in a variety of clean coal technologies that reduced emissions by 90%
and intends, over the next decade, to spend $100 billion more. Even so, the EPA
continues to issue rules—New Source Performance Standard—that make operating
coal-fired plants too costly to operate.

The Obama
administration’s justification for its policies is the bogus claim that carbon
dioxide (CO2) is responsible for “global warming” or “climate change” when it
plays NO role whatever regarding the Earth’s climate.

The same
lies the Obama and Democrats in Congress, as well as the Health and Human
Services department told Americans about the Affordable Health Act are
reflected in their lies about the nation’s energy sector.

Obama has
been waging a war on America’s energy needs and the benefits that would result
from its expansion.

Until
Obama leaves office and voters remove the opponents of the nation’s energy
sector, the enormous benefits to Americans in jobs and debt reduction will not
occur.

4 comments:

I think people like that idiot carrying the no coal sign should be made to live off alternative energy sources entirely, no fossil fuels, ever. Once they are made to live like the Luddites, maybe they will change their tune!

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.